Accuser In Sexual Assault Trial Challenged On Exam Date Contradiction

MIDDLETOWN — The lawyer for a doctor accused of sexually assaulting patients produced a document in Superior Court Wednesday that may cast doubt on an accuser's credibility.

Norman Pattis showed the document to the second alleged victim to testify against Dr. Tory Westbrook of Glastonbury. The paperwork, which contains medical information, indicates that the woman visited the Community Health Center in Clinton in September of 2010.

The woman, known in court as "K.M.," had testified that she was sexually assaulted on June 2, 2011 — her first visit to the office.

Pattis asked the woman if it would surprise her to hear that she went to the clinic on Sept. 17, 2010. She answered yes, and said she did not know why the record, with her blood pressure and other vital signs, had that date.

Pattis' cross-examination came on the third day of Westbrook's trial. The Glastonbury resident is charged with five counts of second-degree sexual assault and four counts of fourth-degree sexual assault. Westbrook, 45, also faces 14 charges in other cases that are being handled separately.

Pattis also questioned previous testimony from the woman indicating that a medical assistant was in the room when Westbrook "caressed" her during a breast exam. The former patient said she looked up at the ceiling during the incident; she also testified that the medical assistant was looking at her computer.

"Were you able to see the nurse while you were looking at the ceiling?" he asked.

"Yes, I was," she said.

The accuser raised her voice twice while testifying, including once as Pattis asked a series of questions about whether Westbrook touched certain sensitive private areas of her body, and she was firmly answered "no."

At another point, the woman looked at the jury in apparent exasperation after some questions.

She had earlier testified that "I was very confused about what happened in that room. I was trying to wrap my head around what happened. To me, it was a violation."

She said she called a close friend on the way home from the visit and, crying, told the friend what had happened. The friend suggested that she go right to the police, she testified, but she didn't.

"I said, 'Who's going to believe me over a doctor?'" the woman testified.

The friend testified briefly, saying she could tell K.M.'s distress was genuine.

"She was very upset, clearly shaken," she said. "I could tell how she is with her voice."

The friend said the conversation happened on June 2, 2011.

Besides a few close friends and family, K.M. told no one about her allegations until about a year later, she said, when she went to a lawyer "to get some advice about the situation I knew I was in." The attorney, former Chief State's Attorney Christopher Morano, already was representing other alleged victims in a civil case against Westbrook, according to testimony.

"Personally, I didn't know how this whole thing worked," the woman testified. "I just wanted [Westbrook] to get into trouble and not do this to other women."

Later, Dr. Jaideep Talwalkar testified about the proper way to give breast exams, pelvic exams and physicals. He said he never conducted a breast exam with both hands at the same time as Westbrook is alleged to have done. And he said he wouldn't allow a patient to be completely naked in an exam room. The first accuser to testify described on Monday how she was lying on an exam table, naked.

Prosecutor Brenda Hans asked Talwalkar: "In a standard, physical exam, is there a reason to have a patient completely nude, lying, supine, on a table, completely exposed?"